


A Cure for (almost) All Ills

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Blood Ties
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-23
Updated: 2008-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-25 05:21:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1633673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are times when supernatural illnesses have supernatural cures.  This is not one of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Cure for (almost) All Ills

**Author's Note:**

> This setup really required more pron than I was able to do, for which I am deeply sorry; the images alone would be lovely.
> 
> Written for jessikast

 

 

"You're not healing," Vicki said, and a moment later rolled her eyes at the idiocy of the statement. It was about as useful as saying _you're a vampire_. "Why not? Do you need blood? Should I--"

Henry's "No, it's not that" overlapped with my own grumble that, all things considered, was probably better left unheard by the other two. Vicki shot me a look anyway before turning her attention back to the vampire on the bed.

...the _vampire_. No matter how many times that term came up, I still had problems believing it. Vampires weren't supposed to be real.

Then again, I'd seen a lot of things lately that weren't supposed to be real.

And vampires weren't supposed to be dying. Which, from the looks of things, Henry was. He was pale (even for him, which was saying something) and cold to the touch (ditto), face tight with pain, breath coming fast and hard through clenched teeth.

He started to say something more, then arched with a new spasm of agony, his entire body rigid. I couldn't help wincing in sympathy. Sure, I didn't like the bloodsucker much (that was hardly the headline of the year either), and maybe I would be happier if he was out of the picture entirely, but, geez, I didn't want him ending up like _this_.

"Bite's infected," Henry finally managed to gasp out. "The poison's spread through my whole body at this point. New blood... would just make it worse."

"What kind of poison?" Vicki demanded.

"Suc--" Henry groaned, convulsed, and was abruptly still.

Dead?

(...well, deader, at least...)

But Vicki just gave a slight sigh, and relaxed. "Sunrise," she said. "He's in... I guess you could call it stasis, sort of. He should be okay until sunset. That gives us time to figure out how to cure him."

Hopefully, curing didn't involve any sort of sucking.

I said dubiously, "Us?" It's not like I was an expert on this sort of thing. Whatever. I didn't have to help Henry, but I wanted to help Vicki, and sometimes that turned into the same thing. "Fine. Yeah. What do you want me to do?"

She regarded me for a long moment, and then smiled at me, the sort of smile that lit up her face. The sort that made me fall in love with her all over again, even when she was being the most impossible woman _ever_.

"Go home," she told me, gently. "Get some sleep. I can have Coreen look into things for us."

"Yeah," I said, and then gave in to impulse and stroked her cheek, following a smudge of dried blood that I didn't think was hers. "You get some rest too, okay?"

"Of course," she said brightly, and I knew she wouldn't.

* * *

Coreen was pretty much bouncing with excitement when I showed up that night in response to Vicki's terse I-need-you call. "Succubus," she said, eyes dancing. "That's what we think it is."

Uh-huh. Sure. "I draw the line at sucking cars," I said dryly. "Sucking buses is a little much. Anyway, didn't we face one of these guys before, and he turned out to be pretty harmless?"

"Hah! Told you," Coreen said smugly to Vicki, who muttered something and fished out a five-dollar bill to hand over.

"...You two had a _bet_ on me?" I stared, incredulous, at the two of them. Neither looked repentant.

"On whether you'd remember, yeah," Vicki finally admitted. I grumbled, even though it was kind of cute. "And on whether you'd make the connection."

"But!" Coreen said. "Here's the thing. _That_ was an incubus. _This_ is a succubus. And while most mythologies use the term more or less interchangably-- well, really, depending on whether it appears in male or female form-- it turns out there's a difference. An incubus is focused on, er, pleasure. His, and his... uh, victim, though that's not really the right word. He dominates, but it's the sort of domination where the power roles are really reversed, so it's mainly about what the victim" (she air-quoted the word) "wants."

"And a succubus?" I asked, wondering if I was making a mistake doing so.

"There's still the sex thing, but it's less about pleasure and more about pain. I mean, for some people pain _can_ be pleasure," she added hastily, and I did _not_ want to know, "but the succubus pushes the bounds even of most sane masochists."

"Sane masochist? Didn't know they existed," I muttered.

"Mike," Vicki said warningly.

"Plus, while the incubus has sex direcly with his not-really-victims-- I mean, not _directly_ , it's usually dream-based, but it's one on one between the incubus and his partner-- but a succubus _uses_ her vixtims to have sex through."

"Involving two people," Vicki pointed out, "not just one."

Because I couldn't do the math for myself?

"In this case," I said mildly, flickering my gaze to where Henry was doing his daylight death-imitation, "no _people_ have been involved yet."

"Come on, Mike," Vicki said with exasperation.

"Oh, did I use my out loud voice? Sorry about that."

Her eyes glittered, but she didn't rise to the bait. Instead, she said, "Once someone has been infected by the succubus, as Henry has, there's only one way to cure it."

"Oh, God," I muttered. "You know, Vic, if you wanted to have sex with him, you could just _ask_."

She didn't even look irritated, which meant she was way more worried than she was letting on. "There's a complication."

Of course. There always is. I raised an eyebrow, waiting.

"The succubus feeds on negative energies-- it's basically the opposite of an incubus in that regard-- so the sex can't be with a desired partner. You may have noticed Henry's interest in me--"

"No shit. Hey, there might even be some of that 'interest' flowing the other direction."

She ignored me. "--which means that nothing I can do will help."

"I can't do anything either," Coreen added, a bit sheepishly.

There were three people in the room; two of them were out of the question; and Vicki had said _"Mike, we need you."_

Well, shit.

"What about a, er, working girl?" I said, and then muttered "I did _not_ just say that."

"Wouldn't work. Henry would be quite happy with one of them, and he has a certain ... charm ... that makes him, um, hard to resist."

I scrubbed at my face. Only Vicki could get herself into this sort of situation. Christ on a cracker. "Hypothetically, what happens if we do nothing? _Hypothetically_ ," I added, as Vicky glared at me.

Coreen said, "Victims of the succubus will stay alive as long as the succubus lets them. If it goes uncured-- which isn't often, and, you know, I wonder how many rapes can be attributed to the effects of--"

"Stay on track, Coreen," Vicki said.

"--right. If it goes uncured, the succubus poison will eventually become contagious, like a virus, and will continue to spread until the succubus gets what she wants. There was one report of an epidemic in... uh, staying on track."

"So, basically, do this or other people are at risk too?"

"Yep," Vicki said grimly, even though, looking at her, I knew she was more concerned about Henry than anyone else.

If succubus poison turned contagious, she would be the first one hit.

Fuck.

"Fine," I said with a sigh, and stripped off my coat. "And--" I pointed at both of them. "No pictures or videos."

"Aw man," Coreen sighed, and Vicki's lips twitched.

* * *

So. Sex with a smug, irritating vampire was not high on my list of priorities. Sex with a guy... well, I'd tried it once, and it hadn't done much for me.

Sex with a poisoned male vampire who kept getting my Vicky into all sorts of trouble?

...Yeah. I was really going to have fun.

It was after sunset when I went in, and Henry's eyes were half-open, watching me warily.

I realized that we hadn't really been keeping our voices down. "How much did you hear?"

"Enough," he said, lips tipping in a wry smile. His voice was hoarse, and his hands were clenched at his sides; his eyes were unnaturally dark. "You do not need to do this."

"Vicki said--"

"I know." It was a snarl, gutteral and vampiric. "She means well. But-- vampires have abilities that humans do not--"

Really? Hadn't noticed. _So_ glad he was there to point things out.

"-- and it is possible I can fight this off without--" His body convulsed again, and his speech dissolved into a snarl.

"Shut up," I said. "We're doing this."

"Do you realize what you are doing?" he said, turning those depthless black eyes onto me.

"Of course," I said cheerfully, lying through my teeth.

"Then strip," he ordered.

* * *

He was not gentle. (Or, perhaps, he was as gentle as possible given the circumstances; I knew I wasn't getting his full strength.)

He also didn't hesitate to bite me, which I protested against-- "That wasn't in the contract"-- but he raised his head and _looked_ at me, and didn't have to say a word. Anything was in the contract.

Even, I realized (too belatedly to do anything about), killing me.

But he didn't, and the thing that I will never ever admit, especially to Vicki, is that it started feeling _good_. The sex, the biting, all of it. And when he said "Now" in his deep powerful vampire's voice, and bit deep into the junction of my neck and shoulder... 

It didn't hurt. It should have, but all I felt was pleasure, rushing through me like a jolt of adrenaline. 

Well, I also felt a tinge of resentment, but never mind that.

* * *

"So?" Coreen demanded as I came out, dressed (and thankful that the clothes I wore covered the places he had bitten). "How was it?"

I just looked at her. "Pretty much how you'd expect."

"Oh," she said, starry-eyed, "wow."

I didn't quite roll my eyes at her.

Vicki said, "How's Henry?"

"He'll live," I said. "Well. Not really _live_ , but, you know. Unlive? And I'll live too, thanks for asking."

She flung her arms around me in a warm, grateful hug. "Thank you," she said softly, and kissed my cheek.

"My pleasure," I muttered, and I wasn't-- entirely-- lying.

 


End file.
